Super Show 2: Part 1 of 5

Super Show 2 ran from July 17, 2009 to April 10, 2010, stopping in Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok, Nanjing, Beijing, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila. Kangin was suspended after the Hong Kong show due to having been involved in a bar fight, but it was eventually determined that he had only fought out of self-defense. And then a month after the bar fight, Kangin got a DUI, so SM decided to go ahead and have him do his military service. Presumably if not for the DUI, Leeteuk or Heechul would have gone first since they are oldest. Kangin ended up missing two entire albums/promotional cycles over it, and due to another DUI, he will be missing the upcoming Super Junior 2017 album, but that is not actually released yet as of the time of this writing. (Can they just send him to the military again?)

The Youtube linked above, and my copy, are both the Seoul version, so Kangin is there. Kibum is bizarrely in the promo images for this, and I will be very surprised if he appears in any format other than pre-recorded video interludes. Also, unlike the Youtube, my version is split into two pieces, so my times may be a little weird. Sorry! 😦

So let’s get started!

This, thankfully, does not start with the corny “da-da-da-daaaa Here comes Super Junior! Lens flares and vaudeville music!!” intro. Maybe the actual DVD does. This just starts with the opening movie and a swell of screams.

my children

There’s uh, several shots of a bustling city, and then a sun explodes, or a black hole, or something? and it ejects something asteroid-like toward Earth. Once the asteroid enters the atmosphere, time slows down and a bunch of streams of light zoom out of it (hm I wonder what that could be). A coffee cup overturns DRAMATICALLY. More slow footage of everyday people with zoomy lights going by. The audio goes vwwoorm and suddenly one of the zoomy lights turns into Kangin (with frosted tips OH NOOOO), and the audience goes nuts. More lights turning into more SJ members. Lots of unpleasant blonde bits in hairs. Heechul wearing sunglasses and a facemask. With Donghae and Kyuhyun in the same shot because clearly this silly intro video was made for me :3

The asteroid is now I guess devoid of SJ zoomy lights but still hovering in the ocean for some reason? Yoo Youngjin or someone says, “We created… new chapter of culture. We are… the SUPER JUNIOR.” Yes, the Super Junior. Accept no imitations. I would like to point out that in the full shot there are only twelve dudes, not thirteen. Why is Kibum in the promo art but not in this intro video? Maybe he made a last minute decision not to participate?

siwon and shindong got shafted in this

We are now in the arena and there is voiceover and various members rising out of the floor. Hair overall is much better than the first Super Show; no weird rattails or anything, though Donghae and Sungmin appear to have too much hair gel in and Shindong has a bowl cut because who knows. OR OK HANGENG IS PLATINUM BLONDE. Why is this. Definitely no Kibum. “SUPER SHOW… VERSION… TWO. ARE. YOU. READY?”

That’s a good song to lead off on! I approve of this message. It appears Super Junior does too, because maybe they’re just full of energy, but they’re all dancing their way down to the center stage and it looks like they really like dancing to this song. Also this is definitely lipsynced, because Sungmin is lipsyncing Kyuhyun’s part, with Kyuhyun’s vocals, wtf. Where is he? Heechul ripped his mask off and he’s honestly looking surprisingly into this whole thing which makes me happy. “LET’S GO DOWN… TO THE BASEMENT.” Is that where Kyuhyun is? HE CAME OUT IN THE INTRO WHY DID HE GO AWAY AGAIN.

heechul out-hots kyuhyun (and a reprise of a gif from last time)

They had him pop out in the bridge and I do not at all understand this because that’s not his only line in the song and they didn’t even recut it with Sungmin singing Kyuhyun’s earlier vocals. SLOPPY, SLOPPY SM. They are wearing leather jackets over white and black vests and black shirts, and there’s a lot of running out, pulling jacket off shoulders to cheers, and then pulling jacket back up. They’re just shoulders, kids. (Also, I think that may have been Shindong miming a Kibum rap. Sigh.) Heechul is wearing too much eyeliner but damn he is good at being hot.

adequate hump dance, but check out heechul on far left in the wide shot

Is Kyuhyun going to actually participate in this one? It would be nice, SM. OK, yes, apparently, there are twelve people on stage. Heechul does not have his fan (boo) and is barely trying to lipsync. Super Junior, this is the start of the show, you’re not worn out yet, you’re lipsyncing – I demand optimum hump dance. Here it comes… hrm. The humps could have been bigger but it was pretty consistent across the group. (Heechul’s was extra sexy because he is a bastard.) However, they still haven’t fixed the part where five people dance and everyone else just kneels motionless in the background.

HRRRM. I am not sure I am down for a dance remix of this. It kind of works, but that’s mostly because it’s a well-written song; it loses all the drama though and replaces it with sexy lip tugs and crotch chop crap which, sigh. All the vocals are copied over from the original, so you have Heechul’s “NAAAN” and Yesung’s melismas and stuff at the same time as humping. It’s kind of incongruous. I hope they bring “normal” “It’s You” back in a later Super Show. Everybody strips off their jackets and flings them to the ground at the end of the song.

It is really hard to properly write about this when everything is lip-synced. This had better not be going on for the whole goddamn show.

Interlude 1 Starts at 19:24.

Someone flipping through magazines. They come across a “She Wants It” graphic novel of some kind. It is a badly written noir.

OH GOOD THIS IS ACTUALLY LIVE!!! Kyuhyun’s on one of those stupid tiny platforms with no front railing again and you can see it rocking around while he’s standing there. So far so good through the first verse and chorus. Leeteuk’s walking around with an umbrella which got a big cheer for some reason. Haha, Siwon said “go crazyyyyyyyAHH!” Kyuhyun swapped out with Yesung on the Teetering Platform Of Doom. Yesung having pitch issues again. Ryeowook sounded like the only one with his mic on in that 2nd chorus, which might be for the best. Donghae keeps going “WOOO!” This last chorus might be Kyuhyun and Ryeowook, with Yesung’s mic live for ad-libbing; everybody else looks like they’re singing but I can’t hear anyone, which again, that is for the best.

Super Junior introducing themselves/chatting – Starts at 24:07.

what even is this

Everybody gets little dance intros – most of them are sexy or attempting to be, except for Shindong (who does comic relief dance, of course), and I am not even sure what Kyuhyun is doing.

This one is live too – Kyuhyun sounds gooood and Donghae promptly whiffs a G4. Kangin flexes his muscles in his verse and then punches Yesung in the chest while Yesung is singing, but Yesung’s pitch is WAY off on the entire line, punch or not. Ryeowook whaps Sungmin in the ass during his part. Sungmin is also out of tune. Shindong, Hangeng and Leeteuk are all trying to strip Kyuhyun, but Kyuhyun stays in tune, because Kyuhyun is the best. Eunhyuk out of tune at the end of the second chorus. Ryeowook is good in the bridge. Eunhyuk is STILL bad. TURN OFF HIS MIC. Yesung is SHARP on a long big note.

This makes sense, honestly, given how silly “Angela” ended up being – “Miracle” is a good run-around-whooping sort of song. They are doing it at a faster BPM, I think, and it also sounds like some sort of dancier remix, aaaaand it’s live so this should be interesting. Kyuhyun was doing background vocals like he was gargling and so they eventually shut off his mic, hahaha. Now everyone is doing intentionally bad backing vocals. This was not terrible but it felt Ryeowook-heavy again which helps.

Haha, I forgot about this song. MORE RUNNING AROUND in case you didn’t get enough of it in the last song. Heechul sounds like shiiiit. I think Siwon proposed to Donghae. Kyuhyun uncharacteristically flat! Nice job on the B♭4 tho, bb. Yesung characteristically all over the place. That “Na na naaaaaa na na na” with the walking disco bass is still pretty great and belongs in a less boring song; they use it more in this version than in the original and it does help some.

OK, so we had “Angela,” which was a standing still song for the most part but still fairly silly, then we had “Miracle”, which was running around goofiness, and then we had “Disco Drive”, which was more running around goofiness, and now “Dancing Out,” which is inevitably going to be more running around goofiness? I mean, I’m not really complaining, but they’re going to run out of running around goofy songs if they don’t move on soon. This is almost more being yelled than it is sung and Yesung whiffs a long G4, again.